


The Twenty-Third Letter

by Anythingtoasted



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 06:12:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anythingtoasted/pseuds/Anythingtoasted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(pre-canon, implied underage sex, implied prostitution)</p><p>That's the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Twenty-Third Letter

**Author's Note:**

> I see a lot of romanticised "dean turned tricks" fic, and this isn't a criticism of that on my part - but i wanted to explore the concept myself, too. I don't buy into it, in canon; but i think it's an interesting idea (if a horrendous one)

Dean gets back in the car – Sam remembers that, most of all – and wipes his mouth .

He calls his brother’s name. Just once. “Dean?” But Dean is somewhere else; he stares into the distance, starts the car. Backs out of the gas station without a word.

He had left the car – followed someone else’s beckoning, kissed Sam on the forehead, holding his face, and said, “Sorry, Sammy. I won’t be long.” A pause. “I love you.” Shutting the door of the Impala behind him, locking it to walk across the gas station (almost abandoned, at two in the morning – the kiosk is lit, casting halogen on the car.) and into the darkness, where Sam’s eyes couldn’t follow. He’d come back ten, fifteen minutes later. Different. Wiped his mouth. Drove away.

Sam sits opposite him in the booth at McDonald’s – Dean grins at him, jokes with him, making fun of his happy meal. He orders a coffee for himself, ignores the way the patrons stare at him, because he’s young and it’s too late (early) for him to be out at all, let alone with an eleven year old. Then halfway through his third sip he looks pale, grey; leaves the booth with an apology. When he comes back his eyes are red-rimmed, his throat raw when he talks. He looks, for a second, as if he’s going to run and throw up again, but he doesn’t. That’s the first time.

After, there’s no throwing up. No crying. There’s the silent car, Sam with his hands pressed against the cold, wet windows, peering out after where Dean has gone, unable to see where he is. Dean returns, silent. Takes him to the movies, sometimes, or for food. Backs out of where they’ve pulled up – gas stations, mostly, sometimes motels – and the street lamps bathe him in yellow flashes, slow streaking past the windows, lighting half of Dean’s face, then fading out again. After a while, he talks again. Always after a while.

It is only years later that Sam remembers, and realises what it was; what his brother, at fifteen, was doing. It’s something he hears by accident – a joke, from one of his friends, about the things people do when they’re desperate – and he laughs, forced. He says nothing. When they are together again, he and Dean, he’ll sometimes look at the side of his face when they roll along, and think _What else did you do for us? For me? What would you do?_

He doesn’t know whether he’s thankful, or not.   


End file.
